- HOUSTON - The bankrupt energy
giant, Enron Corp., designed and maintained a fake trading floor at its
Houston office.
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- According to former Enron employees, on the sixth floor
of the company's downtown headquarters was a set, designed to trick analysts
into believing business was booming.
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- "It was an elaborate Hollywood production that we
went through every year when the analysts were going to be there to be
impress them to make our stock go up," former employee Carol Elkin
said.
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- Elkin worked for Enron for five years as an energy analyst.
She was once even commended by then-Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling.
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- Elkin said that the phony trading room was staffed by
her and other employees to resemble a real trading operation.
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- "They would build out the sixth floor of 1000 Smith
in what I called a Hollywood set," Elkin said. "They would build
out a set with a big, 36-inch flat panel screens and the teleconference
conference rooms."
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- Elkin said that it was all an act, and that no trades
were actually made there. The people on the phones were talking to each
other.
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- "They would ask us to go alternately, in like hour
shifts down to the sixth floor," Elkin said. "And sit and pretend
that we lived and worked there."
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- Elkin said that it fit the company's culture that Enron
couldn't just be a good company -- it had to appear at least, to be the
best, even if the truth was all smoke and mirrors.
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- "It was absurd that we were doing this," Elkin
said. "But to me the most absurd part was that it worked."
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- Elkin is now one of many employees that are suing Enron,
hoping to recover 401k savings that were lost when the company collapsed.
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- Enron did not comment about the fake trading room.
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